Morality is whatever makes you feel good

Morality is whatever makes you feel good is a moral formula Barbara uses to turn destructive retaliation into something she can regard as justified. Recalling Oliver’s habitual quotation of a line attributed to Hemingway, she applies its logic to her own actions in his workroom—and feels good as she dismantles the order he had built there.

Wording and Attribution

The expression echoes the line Barbara remembers Oliver often quoting: “Moral is anything that makes you feel good.” The novel presents it as attributed to Hemingway, not as a verified statement of authorship. Its blunt equation of morality with personal satisfaction offers no standard beyond the actor’s own feeling, a limitation that becomes clear when Barbara puts it to use.

Barbara’s Use of the Principle

In Oliver’s workroom, Barbara empties the neatly arranged containers of screws, bolts, nails, and nuts, cuts the wires from power tools, and submerges other tools in lubricating oil. She tells herself there is a logical progression to what she is doing, “like the relentless course of true justice,” and remembers Oliver’s line as she maintains what she considers a superior moral position. The remembered maxim does not restrain her retaliation; it helps her experience it as righteous and pleasurable. Her delicious buoyancy exposes the gap between the language of justice and the destruction she is carrying out.